Private Rattlesnake

[Arris Windrun]

CORUSCANT
UNDERWORLD
Acier Moonbound
​

Arris picked idly at her noodle dish. Some fusion of a hundred different food cultures that, over time, coalesced into an "authentic" bit of Coruscanti cuisine. But she knew the ingredients. The same shit served at every street food stall like the one she parked her ass at. Though everyone acted like it was a cornerstone of the community - a business that had been there for nearly a hundred years, allegedly tracing its lineage to an even older establishment before the plague.

"So it's true then," an amused voice picked up behind her, but she didn't acknowledge it at first. "I mean, I heard you were back... fought in some big tournament a couple years back?"

She finally glanced over her shoulder. He was oddly familiar, but she couldn't exactly place him. "Huh? You want an autograph or something?" Another fan, she figured, though it had honestly been a while, and she was no longer enjoying her fame.

He smiled and laughed. A beanpole of a thing with a scratchy-looking goatee and spiked hair that was at least a few fashions dull. "Oh, wow. This is even weirder than I thought. I mean, I heard you went blonde, but this, man? You really went off the deep end, didn't you?" His arms went wide in a gesture that framed her whole being.

Then, it hit her. She did know who this guy was, just...

A DECADE AGO...

"C'mon. I'll pay you back, I promise!" The lanky teen insisted.

A dark-haired woman smoked her cigarette at the corner of a convenience store. Grey eyes over a bed of faded freckles looked at the boy. "Naw, fuck off. You still haven't paid me back for the last time." She drawled.

PRESENT

...He was just a kid then, but she remembered him. Yeah. She remembered a lot now.

"Sorry, I don't know you," she deflected.

"Really?" His voice strained in disbelief - or was it disappointment? "I mean, I'd know that face anywhere," there was poison in those words, "but she wasn't made of steel, and she sure as hell wasn't a fighter, and I'm pretty sure she--"

Arris stepped off her stool and had him dangling by the collar faster than he could finish that thought. She grimaced and glared; he looked down at her with six degrees of fear. Bystanders paused to process the commotion, while the stall attendant looked about ready to close up shop just in case.

Her voice went low, with texture not unlike a growl. "Yeah, I know you. And if you think you know who the fuck I am, then you know what I've been up to all these years. Don't think for a second that I won't waste you."

Flailing hands tried desperately to pry her metal fingers off his collar, which tightened uncomfortably around his throat. "Pleaase..." His plea was a pathetic, raspy thing, but then something switched in his brain. He was still a ganger after all, brainwashed the same way she had been. He consolidated that fear into a faux and bitter apathy. "I work for him now. He'll come after you if you kill me!" Shit posturing if she said so, but it's exactly what she would've said.

Her eyes shifted. A little wide with surprise, but not quite shocked, even though her heart picked up like the peak of a club beat. She let him go, and he nearly buckled at the knees, wheezing and coughing as he caught his breath. She reached into her pocket to draw a cigarette.

"What makes you think he's got that kind of pull?" She asked quietly, anything to mask the rush of emotions.

He looked at her, a little confused, trying to regain his bearings, but his lips curled into a smug little smirk. "He's king of the board, man. It was always gonna be his show. And I'm not the only one who fell in line, either. You ran away, Arris, but the rest of us had to stay." There was no mistaking the resentment in his voice before he scrambled away.

Arris sighed and took a long, desperate drag. She hadn't even noticed Ace watching nearby. Until now.

"How long you've been there?"

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Underworld

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

"A while."

Ace's voice came from somewhere behind her shoulder, calm and annoyingly unbothered as usual. Hands buried in the pockets of his jacket, he stepped forward through the lingering tension left behind by the confrontation - but not enough to fully close the distance.

Coruscant traffic roared overhead in layered waves. The food stall while the owner pretended very hard not to look in either of their directions.

"I was meeting someone about something." Ace said simply.

Vague on purpose. But Arris was smart enough to fill gaps when she wanted to. The Vergeworks was stabilizing under his rule, but distance still slowed everything down. Cargo, information, smuggling routes. A direct route into the Core would turn Bonadan from a forgotten industrial sinkhole into something far more useful.

Ace had been trying to change that quietly.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the direction the ganger had disappeared before returning to her.

"Was there a point to that?" He asked flatly. "Guy recognized you, so you threaten him? I know you're a schutta, but I figured you'd mellowed out."

There wasn't much bite behind it. More observation than genuine criticism.

Truthfully, Ace had seen a different version of her before. Back in Coruscant's industrial sector. The Works. She was... less sharp, or more accurately, visibly less angry at the galaxy.

His eyes studied her for another moment before he finally asked the thing he'd actually been wondering since the conversation started.

"Who's 'him'?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

There was no mistaking her vulnerability now when she turned to face Ace properly. One thing about the cyborg's nature was that she never experienced nervous reactions on the surface - her arms, hands, fingers, whatever. It was all controlled by precise engineering. And yet, there it was, a slight vibration in the metal. Her connection to the Force wavered; her co-processor retreated as Arris Windrun, the real Arris Windrun, fully surfaced.

'Was there a point to that?' He asked her, and she said nothing. Didn't even take another drag.

For a second, it seemed like she was gonna ignore his second question, too, but finally, after a drag that took the cigarette down to the root (and then some), she exhaled sharply and answered. "I need to go home, Ace." Okay, maybe it wasn't the answer he was looking for.

The cyborg threw credits to the stallman and turned to leave, then she stopped, but didn't face Ace.

"Actually," she began softly, "I could really use your help on this."

Arris didn't wait for an answer before she left him with one last line.

"Up to you - meet me at the spaceport in an hour. We're going to the Corellian System."

Yeah. She was about to do the dumbest thing ever and enter Republic space.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Underworld

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace had seen Arris vulnerable before. Rarely, and never for long, but enough to recognize the signs beneath the armor plating and cigarette smoke. Usually she buried it beneath sarcasm, violence, or that detached mechanical calm she wore like another layer of durasteel.

Right now? It was all over her. Not dramatic or emotional, but noticeable enough. The slight tremor in the metal and the wavering presence in the Force may as well have been screaming. Which meant this was big.

When she finally answered him, it wasn't even really an answer.

His expression didn't shift much at all. "Okay then." He replied simply.

Ace watched her throw credits onto the stall counter before turning to leave. Honestly, he was already preparing to head in the opposite direction himself. He had enough problems without voluntarily involving himself in whatever unresolved nightmare from Arris's past had suddenly reared its ugly head.

Then she stopped. Asking him for help.

That made him pause. Why him? Why not Mercy? Or Kirie? Hell, why not Nilira? But before he could ask, she was already moving again.

Ace remained standing there for another moment. Eventually he exhaled quietly through his nose and started walking. Fifteen minutes passed like that, aimless movement through crowded lower-level streets while his thoughts worked faster than his footsteps.

He didn't want to get involved. Ace already had enough on his plate. The Vergeworks. Covenant politics. Mercy. Arris herself. The route project between Bonadan and Coruscant. His own increasingly fractured sense of direction.

But... This was also opportunity. Arris trusted almost nobody emotionally, he'd figured out months ago. If she was voluntarily asking him into something personal, then either she was more destabilized than he'd realized... or she trusted him more than she'd admit out loud. Maybe both.

Trust had value. Especially here. Ace's thoughts shifted then, colder and more strategic as he moved through the neon haze of Coruscant's lower sectors.

If he gained enough leverage with Arris... enough genuine loyalty... maybe he could eventually turn her against Mercy entirely. Remove her and things changed. The pair of them could truly reshape it like they'd wanted. Or maybe that was becoming another one of the lies he kept telling himself lately.

Either way, by the time the thought finished settling in his head, Ace had already made his decision.

---

The spaceport was crowded by the time he arrived. Ace stood near one of the outer docking platforms, posture loose and expression unreadable.

He arrived before Arris did. And when he finally saw her approaching through the noise and movement, he watched her in silence while the distance closed between them.

Then, once she was close enough, Ace finally spoke.

"Don't make this a thing."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

'Don't make this a thing.'

"Oh, shut up," she teased a little. Shelter from the storm that raged inside.

Their journey was uneventful - it was surprisingly easy for them to enter the system without as much a peep from patrolling CorSec ships. Then again, they were in a rustbucket freighter that ran transponder masking like no one else's business. The Covenant had a lot of ships like that for reasons just like this one.

Smuggler's Paradise, the dirty gem at the edge of the Core, Corellia was right there. Everyone had heard of it, of course, and Arris wasn't about to be Ace's tour guide if he hadn't. However, it was worth noting that while many people associated the planet with its reputation for producing great ships and better spacers, Corellia had a much darker side to it: the presence of powerful syndicates that in some (albeit subtler) ways rivaled the Hutts.

But it wasn't Corellia where the freighter's nose ultimately faced. Further across the system, two smaller planets danced in close proximity: The Twin Worlds, Talus and Tralus. It was former that Arris approached, her home...

She was awfully quiet then, moving on from her simple remarks and meaningless conversation as she stared forward, out the viewport. If Ace thought her vulnerability was bad enough on Coruscant, then he hadn't seen nothing yet.

The freighter landed at the Qaestar spaceport, the heart of the lush world's largest and busiest urban center. In contrast to the beautiful grassy seaside, rolling hills, and running rivers they saw on the way in, Qaestar was ugly, polluted, and waaaay overcrowded. More so when Arris walked them to a part of the city that made the word "slums" feel generous. There was a swoop gang on every corner, a racket happening every few steps, and the worst part? Most of 'em were just teenagers. Sure, there were plenty of adults - the shady thugs and taskmasters, but they generally kept out of sight.

Finally, Windrun approached a square brick building that looked to have once been a few stories tall. Only the stone walls were scorched black, cracked and broken, with all the windows long shattered.

Arris just stood there and stared.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Talus

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace spent most of the journey doing everything except talking. At various points he sat with his lightsaber partially disassembled across the dash, making minor adjustments that didn't actually need making. Other times he quietly handled Vergeworks business through encrypted holocalls and messages, approving shipments, and settling disputes.​

​

The most surprising part of the trip was how little resistance they encountered. No Republic inspections or CorSec inquiries, just a rustbucket freighter slipping through Republic space unnoticed.​

​

It wasn't until they crossed into the Corellian System that his attention finally drifted away from his work. Through the viewport, Corellia hung against the darkness and Ace studied it quietly, recalling the times he'd been there.​

​

The first time he'd met Kinley Pryse . The second time he'd crossed blades with Eira Dyn . For a few moments, he simply watched the planet drift beneath them before his gaze shifted higher. Past Corellia. Talus and Tralus. That was where Arris had been taking them from the beginning.​

​

When they finally descended toward Talus, Ace found himself studying the world carefully. It wasn't what he'd expected, the planet was beautiful. Or at least parts of it were, then gradually that beauty gave way to something else. Industry. Crowded districts. Pollution.​

​

Talus was different from Bonadan. His home planet was simply endless factories, scrap, and machinery. The Vergeworks consumed the horizon no matter where you stood. Talus was like someone had taken something beautiful and slowly carved pieces out of it.​

​

What didn't surprise him were the gangs. Or the kids. The moment they entered the poorer districts, Ace recognized the patterns instantly. Teenagers on corners, lookouts pretending not to be. Rackets operating in plain sight. Adults lingering somewhere behind the scenes while children carried most of the visible risk.​

​

Different planet. Same story.​

​

Eventually Arris led them toward what appeared to be the remains of a building. The structure looked like it had once been several stories tall. Now it stood gutted and blackened. Fire damage scarred the walls. Windows sat shattered and empty. Time had done little to heal whatever happened here.​

​

Arris stopped, so Ace did too. At first he studied the building, but then his attention shifted toward her. She looked... stunned? For a moment Ace said nothing, eyes moving between the ruined structure and Arris before finally settling on her again.​

​

"What?"​

​

Whatever this place was, whatever had happened here, it was obviously important.​

​

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris remembered.

Long ago, that building was the centerpiece of this community, home base of the Sneaky Shens - her gang.

Back then she didn't have a single prosthetic or implant. She was just a kid, a teen like any of the other ten they've seen around the last bend. The Shens primarily dealt in protection and smuggling. They made sure all the local businesses played by their rules, and that the smaller swoop outfits didn't get out of control. They worked closely with a larger syndicate, "paying up" they called it - "a little bit of what we have for a little bit of what you have" is how the boss once described it to her. Though the reality was much uglier.

"I was a runner," she finally said something, speaking as if he was in her thoughts with her. She carried data, items, news. Slipped in and out of security checkpoints that separated the slums from the rest of the city. "How I got my name, y'know." Arris looked at him. "Windrun," she snorted.

Yeah. Real original. But people like her didn't have families with names to carry forward. Their identities were glued to the streets and the outfits that took them in.

She looked back up at the building, amusement fading into something bittersweet, then hollow, until her posture faltered a little and she sighed quietly to herself. The last memory she had of this place...

"I ran away."

The boss, a man called Secondhand Ferris, was the textbook example of a mover and shaker in the underworld. See, the Syndicates worked in a simple way: There were the families, some hereditary, others ceremonious, they were old, traditional, and operated somewhere in a grey area between crime and legitimacy. Then there were the gangs - fluid, volatile, community institutions that had neither the luxury nor the pretense of being anything other than scum in the eyes of the upper class.

The pecking order was obvious. But Ferris, oh, he had ideas of his own. Chairman of the Board, the ruling body that kept the Syndicates in check. Referees in their deadly games; kingmakers and power players.

Arris had been explaining this to Ace. "Ferris made a deal with the Family that ran Qaestar," she used the term 'deal' loosely. "A... A daughter of theirs, Rox," She looked down and smiled. Woulda been blushing too if her cheeks could. "She came to stay with us. Y'know... As a prisoner, but not really?" A hostage. "With her, the family couldn't touch us. Or... Or..."

She remembered hearing the fighting. Family foot soldiers and armed speeders. Then, she heard an explosion and saw the fire on the horizon, smoke coming from the base.

Arris fell to one knee in the dusty streets, her fingers running through the old debris. "I ran... I just ran and stowed on a ship for Corellia."

She looked up at him, eyes tired and scared. "I have no idea if she ever made it out. Every fucking day... Whenever I look at Nilira, or Kirie, or some other girl stuck in the Covenant, I just think about her..." Her jaw tightened. "We're here to die, Ace. We're an organization of death, and every single day I look at those girls and watch them chip away until..." She trailed off, eyes down again. "I want more for them; I can't abandon her again." That last part was a slip of words she hadn't caught.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Talus

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace listened. He didn't interrupt, ask questions, challenge her conclusions, or pick apart the logic behind them. He simply stood beside her in the dusty street and listened while his eyes remained fixed on the ruined building.​

​

As Arris spoke, pieces started falling into place. A kid slipping through checkpoints, carrying messages, data, contraband, and moving faster than everyone else around her? It explained the name entirely.​

​

His attention remained on the blackened structure as she continued. Ferris. The gangs. The families. The ecosystem that had governed Talus long before Arris ever left it.​

​

Then she mentioned Rox and his eyes shifted away from the building and toward Arris. The name wasn't new. At first she'd only been a face in an old holo hidden away amongst the clutter of Arris's Nar Shaddaa hideout. Then she'd become a name during their conversation back on Coruscant. Even then, Arris had admitted she'd ran when things got bad.​

​

But not this. Not the whole story, the guilt, and the years she'd spent carrying it. As Arris spoke about Rox, Ace found himself thinking about someone else.​

​

Hina. The thought arrived uninvited. Bonadan, the orphanage, the scrapyards. The years before the Force, before Sith and Jedi and wars and prophecies. Before everything.​

​

Hina had been there through all of it. Then one day she wasn't, left for Zeltros and never looked back. Ace hadn't understood it at the time, didn't possess the words that he'd loved her. Hadn't even known what love was supposed to feel like. But Fatine had changed that.​

​

And looking back now... Hina was probably the first person he'd ever loved. Not romantically or consciously. Completely. The way children sometimes love people before they understand they're doing it.​

​

He'd never seen her again.​

​

His gaze drifted back toward Arris. Suddenly it all made sense. Nilira and Kirie. They weren't Rox, but they also were. Years of guilt and regret projected onto new faces. A chance to save someone she hadn't saved before.​

​

Then Arris brought up the Covenant. An "organization of death" she called it. His eyes lowered toward the broken pavement and another memory surfaced.​

​

Aether standing across from him on a rooftop. Talking about their father and about intentions, power, and all the ways good intentions slowly became something else.​

​

When Arris finally finished speaking, silence settled between them. Ace didn't answer immediately, he just looked at her and for the first time he realized what he was actually seeing. Just Arris. Not the myth, the cyborg, Mercy's attack dog, the Triumvir.​

​

He saw the hurt teenager that had never really left this street, that never stopped running. He saw the woman that carried every mistake she'd ever made like dead weight chained to her back.​

​

For a brief moment, Ace saw something painfully familiar staring back at him. Something that looked a lot like himself. Or maybe who he was before all this.​

​

A quiet sigh escaped him and when he finally spoke, there was no judgment in his voice.​

​

"Then get them out, Arris."​

​

His eyes drifted back toward the ruined building.​

​

"I don't want anyone I care about within a parsec of this place. And you're just... continuing to allow them to be here. Contributing to their suffering and the guilt you already feel..."​

​

The words hung there for a moment, then Ace looked away entirely. The walls went back up and the softness disappeared, exhaustion taking its place.​

​

"...It's all just pointless."​

​

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris got up from her knee - slow, weak, and exhausted. She looked at Ace after the last words passed his lips, and there was a subtle shift in the Force. For a moment, the gaps were there, the dark wall of hatred and fear born of that thing in her head had faded like the clearing of a fog. What was left was just Windrun, a sick and broken spirit in the Force, but hardly the being so utterly consumed by darkness she was before.

She looked ready to say something profound, maybe proclaim some kind of acceptance in Ace's words, but then...

A large, multiperson speeder pulled up, and out stepped a handful of men. They were well-dressed, fitted threads like businessmen, only their tattoos and the way they carried themselves said they were anything but. One stood out among them, literally, he stepped in front.

A clean shave, short black hair. Cool, confident eyes. A gold lapel on the fold of his jacket. "I didn't believe it."

"Hic," Arris uttered his name under her breath.

He was her brother in the Shens. A few years older, he looked after her, taught her a lot - like how to fight.

"Grease called in, said he saw Arris Windrun slumming on Coruscant. I said no way, I heard she was in the big leagues now. What is it, a Sith Lord? Ya killing people with spooky magic now?" His cadence was quite like hers. Yeah, they were from the same place.

Arris said nothing. Stared him down is all.

He rubbed his forehead as if confronting a minor hurdle at work. "But then I thought... If it was true, you'd probably show up sooner rather than later, and if you did, I knew you'd be here." He grinned. "My instincts are still sharp, yeah?" He looked at Ace. "Who's the kid?"

"What do you want?"

Hic pointed at himself in that faux 'who, me?' sorta way. "Oh, well I... I don't want anything. But the Chairman wants to see you." He shrugged. "So," with a gesture towards the speeder. "You and your friend are free to come with us, but ya can't stay here."

There was no reason she had to listen. Hell, she could've obliterated them all without a second thought. But listen she did, without much hesitation. "C'mon, Ace," she said as she walked towards the speeder.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Talus

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace's attention remained on the ruined building, and he felt Arris through the Force. His brow furrowed slightly. Normally, Arris's presence felt... wrong. Like pure, concentrated darkness. A void of black. Not like others who the Dark side had sunken their claws into.

But now? For a brief moment, that void wasn't there. Or at least not as much. What he sensed underneath wasn't exactly healthy. The spirit beneath the machinery felt battered, exhausted, and scarred in ways he doubted most people could comprehend, but it felt real. Human.

The thought immediately dragged him back to the conversation they'd had months ago about the processor buried somewhere inside her skull. Was this what happened when it stopped compensating? When it stopped protecting her?

Before Ace could dwell on the thought for too long, other presences entered his awareness. Several. And they were approaching. His senses stretched outward automatically - he found aggression and violence. The usual collection of emotions found around professional gangsters.

But none of it was directed toward them and it didn't feel immediate. So Ace didn't move or reach for either lightsaber.

The arrival of the speeder confirmed what he'd already sensed. Several men stepped out and his eyes moved across them methodically before settling on the one who immediately took charge. Ace studied him in silence while Arris and the man exchanged words.

Hic. He resembled Arris in some ways. Not physically, it was something deeper than that. The cadence, the attitude, the confidence, and way he carried himself. The same place had made both of them.

So Ace watched and listened to all the history unfolding in front of him. The Force remained surprisingly calm during all this. There was tension, yes. Old and complicated emotions too. But not hostility.

Then Hic delivered his invitation. Or demand.

"You and your friend are free to come with us, but ya can't stay here."

Ace's eyes narrowed slightly. Can't? That was an interesting choice of words. The man spoke as if he possessed some authority over the situation. As if he or Arris needed permission to stand in front of a burned out building on her own homeworld. Honestly, that alone made Ace want to stay out of spite.

But what surprised him more wasn't Hic. It was Arris. Because she complied immediately, but that meant one of two things. Either she wanted this meeting, or she had a plan. Considering the entire reason they'd come here in the first place revolved around her, Ace elected not to interfere. Not yet. So, without comment he followed her toward the speeder.

The ride began shortly afterward, Talus's battered cityscape rolling past outside the transparisteel windows as the vehicle carried them deeper into whatever history Arris had dragged him into.

Ace sat beside her in silence for several moments, then he leaned slightly in her direction. Just enough that the others wouldn't easily overhear and dropped his voice dropped into a low murmur.

"What's your angle here?"

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

“I need answers, Ace…” Arris whispered. “Watch my back, but don’t get in the way.”

They arrived on Corellia by shuttle and took a turbolift up a tall commercial tower. The ride was quiet, and Hic spent the whole time looking Arris up and down with a self-satisfied grin. He tossed Ace a glance, too, that might as well have said: ‘Do you know?’

The lift stopped at the top, and the door slid open, revealing a grand hallway that looked clean and rich but terribly empty. Almost too empty.

Hic just stood to the side and gestured towards a pair of heavy doors on the other end. The walk there was empty, her steps reverberated, and when she finally reached the end, the doors automatically opened.

There he was, inside his fancy office, sitting in a fancy chair, at a desk made of imported wood - likely hand-carved if she had to guess. His dirty blonde hair had faded to something grey, and his face was a little more gaunt than she remembered. But yeah, that was him, Jond Bel Numen in the flesh.

“Wait here,” she said to Ace. Just inside the room, but no further. A doorman, if he would, guarding the way in... and out.

Arris closed the distance, her steps muffled on luxury carpet.

The chairman looked up from his work. “Who the--“ There was something intense in them, as if he was staring at the devil herself. “Oh, Arris…” He talked down to her with a scowl of disgust and disappointment. “How kind of you to let yourself in,” he groaned, but there was something else. He looked at her in the same way anyone looked at what they found unsettling. He knew who she was, but he didn't expect this.

Arris looked to the floor. The kid from the streets in her hadn't died completely. It was a kind of sorrowful deference. “Why?” The word ached on the way out, barely above a whisper, but clear enough in the perfect acoustics of the tacky, open office.

“Why what?”

Her eyes snapped up, and one foot stomped forward. “Why’d you screw us like that?!” Her voice crackled from the sudden pitch.

He scoffed, as if dismissing a child. “He was moving against me! My family has been doing this for more than a thousand years. Who was he to bargain - strutting like an equal? Using my daughter to dissect my business. He thought he was untouchable? No. No one is. Not even you.”

So that was it. He snuffed them all out because the boss stepped up. But Arris knew that wasn’t why she went along with Hic. She had a question, and didn’t know the right time to ask, so she just did.

The fire in her voice was gone. “What happened to Rox?”

He sat up in his chair, and his scowl faded. “If I were senile, I’d say she was standing right in front of me. It’s a courtesy that I haven’t asked you why you’re wearing her face. What is it… sentiment? Get kicked in the head?” One facetious question after the next. And the last one, hushed. “Are you a pervert, Arris?”

But he didn’t stop there. He leaned forward, hands folded against the hardwood of his desk, brow furrowed fiercely. “I don’t answer to you!” Ah, there he was. “You’re here because I allowed it! Did you really believe you just got away? Did you think I couldn’t have had you beaten or killed anytime I wanted?! I let you go because of her! It was more than a rat ever deserved, and right now, I’m starting to see what a fucking mistake you are.”

“Is she alive?” Arris uttered quietly. Her dead-looking eyes fixed on him.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Corellia

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace exhaled quietly through his nose. Don't get in the way? Then why bring him? She'd asked for help. Dragged him halfway across Republic space and dug up old ghosts and old wounds. Now apparently his role was to stand around and watch.

It wasn't a total waste of his time at least. He'd learned more about Arris in a single day than he had in months, and for whatever reason, she'd let him see that.

Eventually their travels carried them into the commercial district and up the side of a towering skyscraper. Throughout the journey Ace remained quiet, watching and evaluating. Hic most of all. The man kept throwing him those irritating little looks. Like he knew something Ace didn't, like he had something over him. Ace couldn't imagine caring less.

When the lift finally reached the upper levels, he stepped out beside Arris and followed her through the empty corridor and at the end of the hallway, the heavy doors slid open.

Ace's attention immediately settled on the man inside, the office itself barely registering. Jond Bel Numen. When Arris told him to wait there, Ace glanced toward her briefly and exchanged a simple look of acknowledgement.

He took up position near the doorway, arms folded and back partially turned. He watched the entrance while listening to everything.

The conversation unfolded exactly how he'd expected. Ace learned quickly that Numen wasn't special, men like him existed everywhere. Powerful people convinced of their own importance, who'd destroy lives because their pride got bruised. The revelation that he'd wiped out Arris's gang because Ferris challenged him barely moved the needle.

Tale as old as time.

What did surprise him was something else entirely. His attention sharpened, ever so slightly.

"If I were senile, I'd say she was standing right in front of me."

Ace remained motionless, but then:

"It's a courtesy that I haven't asked you why you're wearing her face."

Something cold settled in his stomach, but he didn't react outwardly. Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable. Rox's face. Arris was wearing Rox's face.

The realization hit him like a delayed explosion and his thoughts immediately raced backwards. To the hideout on Nar Shaddaa and the old photograph.

The image he'd stared at months ago. Two girls. One he'd assumed was Arris, the other he'd assumed was Rox. Because of course he had, why wouldn't he?

His memory replayed the image. Again, and again. Suddenly the pieces rearranged themselves. He'd gotten it backwards. The girl he'd thought was Rox... that had been Arris.

The girl he'd assumed was Arris... that was Rox.

The pit in his stomach deepened. Because that meant every time he'd looked at Arris since then... every conversation, every argument, lesson, mission. Every glimpse beneath the armor.

He'd unknowingly been looking at the face of the ghost she'd spent years chasing.

Ace stared straight ahead, still listening but processing. Trying and failing to understand what kind of grief, obsession, guilt, or trauma led someone to do this. For perhaps the first time since leaving Coruscant, he had absolutely no idea what to make of what he was hearing.

What the fuck.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

He paused. He couldn’t believe this.

“You don’t get to know. She was--“

There was a sharp whirr and a sonic snap, followed by a very loud bang that echoed off the walls. There was no time to guess when Windrun's revolver wound up in her hand, the word "Out" etched into the songsteel frame. A plume of steam rose ceiling-high from the barrel, and there was a quiet hissing as it rapidly cooled.

Across from there, in that chair, his posture had hardly changed. Only there was nothing left from the neck up, just a fist-sized exit on the wall behind him and a red halo of his splattered blood. Bullseye.

Poor fuck never saw it coming. Actually, it was entirely possible that Arris Windrun just set the galactic record for fastest draw.

Not that she was in the mood to celebrate.

Something else had snapped inside her. His death at her hand, wearing the face of his daughter, had her sick to the gut. Yet, there was also a sense of restitution buried in that moment. Justice dealt. A lover avenged... if only. If only it were that poetic. That simple. That acceptable. No. Arris just felt ugly about the whole thing. Found it all meaningless. Rox was gone, and Windrun hadn't an answer, just common sense.

"She's dead." The Talusian let slip, her voice tired.

The revolver slid back into its holster, and Arris turned around, passing by Ace. When she walked out that door, stepped into the grand hallway, a small army of syndicate soldiers lined the walls, armed with blasters and blades. For a second, she was convinced this was about to become a bloodbath.

But when Hic pressed through the ranks, he called out to them, and her, too, in a way.

"Let her go."

Drones they were - these perfect, obedient soldiers. Barrels pointed to the floor, blades at rest.

It was time for another realization, so soon after the last, because Arris quickly gathered what the hell this was all about. She had been used. He sent the kid to find her on Coruscant and brought her back, just to let her anger do the dirty work. Hic did what Ferris never could, and she was a Shen trooper unto that end.

Arris wasn't even mad about it. She just left. Or so she wanted that to be all - a quiet exit. No, she stopped to say one last thing at the turbolift.

“Hic,” she seethed. A cold anger rose in the Force, more hateful than ever. “If I can’t find her grave, I will return to cremate this whole fucking system.” The doors closed.

The lift descended. A stark hum to the noise and the rage left in the room upstairs. She retrieved her pack of cigarettes, but then... just threw 'em on the turbolift floor.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Corellia

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The shot echoed through the office. Ace closed his eyes, just for a second, because he wasn't surprised. The moment Numen started talking, the moment he'd refused to answer, Ace had already known how this conversation was going to end.

A sharp breath escaped through his nose. Then his blue lightsaber ignited. He was ready for the violence that was coming next.

Sure enough, by the time Arris stepped past him and into the hallway, armed men were already waiting and Ace moved with her. The lightsaber remained ignited in his hand, humming softly as his eyes tracked targets automatically. Distances. Weapons. Angles. Threats.

Then Hic appeared, telling them to let her go. The order carried through the corridor, and to Ace's mild surprise, the soldiers obeyed immediately. Their weapons lowered and the path opened.

Ace didn't deactivate his lightsaber, the blade remained alive beside him as he walked alongside Arris through the corridor and toward the turbolift. His attention never stopped moving.

Especially when Arris stopped and looked at Hic. She promised to cremate the entire system if she couldn't find Rox's grave.

The threat hung in the air long after the turbolift doors closed. Only then did Ace finally deactivate the weapon, blue blade vanishing with a sharp hiss. Silence settled over the lift as it descended and for several moments he didn't speak.

Ace found himself staring at nothing in particular. Rox was dead, and somehow, through circumstances he still couldn't fully comprehend, Arris had spent years wearing her face.

Eventually Ace broke the silence.

"Remember what I told you about my mother?"

His voice was calm and quiet while staring forward. The words hung between them for a moment.

"How I killed everyone responsible." A small pause followed. "It didn't make me feel better."

His eyes remained forward, expression unreadable. He wasn't judging her, or telling her what to do. He wasn't trying to stop her if she decided to come back and make good on the threat she'd just made upstairs. That was her choice. Her burden. Her grief.

But Ace knew something about revenge now. Something experience had taught him far better than wisdom ever could. Even with the people responsible died, the anger remained, so did the guilt. And the loss.

His gaze lowered slightly.

"It didn't make the pain go away."

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
LIVING

​

Arris stared at the wall as the lift descended.

The picture displayed two girls, in their late teens, by the look of it. One looked remarkably like Arris Windrun, though she was quite shorter, and her face a bit rounder. Of course, there was the obvious absence of any cybernetics. She leaned into the arm of another slightly taller girl with dark hair and a stronger look.

"It's not me who needs to figure out who they want to be. Who are you, Arris Windrun? You need to figure it out."

Arris caught herself staring at the reflection in the puddle. And for the first time in a long time, she saw who it really was staring back at her.

"No, darling, Tilon trusted you to be good." She purred softly. "I on the other hand, have no illusions what any of us are."

Oh - this was a psychological disaster. Arris should've known better.

'Oh, you're feeling bad, are you?' Kirie shook her head in derision. 'Don't pretend like you're not one of them, Arris. This is your party.'

'Remember what I told you about my mother?'

Her attention to his words was rendered known by the slight twitch of her head, a sideways glance that just caught the shape of him in the corner of her vision.

'It didn't make me feel better.'

Feel better? It was too late for that, she thought. She couldn't remember a time she felt good anymore. That rage hadn't subsided when the turbolift doors closed. It just simmered, but unlike previously, it wasn't this volatile mess like Arris Windrun was ready to kill you just because you said she was worthy of something.

'It didn't make the pain go away.'

The lift reached the bottom, and the doors opened again. Arris marched forward until they exited the tower and stepped into the stale air of Coronet City, surrounded by lights and traffic.

She didn't want that pain to go away. The cyborg clenched one fist, squeezing so hard that the metal frame around her fingers and hand bent until it cracked. Then she stretched her hand outward, letting that rage sweep over the city like a phantom tidal wave. One by one, every building on the path went dark, from where she stood to the other outskirts on the other end.

A thought struck her - Arris remembered something Vestra said. It wasn't the right time, but why did that matter?

"I know you threw your fight on Genarius."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Corellia

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace immediately recognized what she'd done. Sidestepped the question. Again. The focus had somehow gone from Rox, Talus, revenge, grief, and everything that had happened in the last hour straight back to him.

It was a known and annoying pattern. Every time something cut too close, Arris had an uncanny talent for finding another target to point at.

So, Genarius. Of all the things to drag into this conversation, of all the questions to ask. No doubt something Vestra said before getting obliterated by Arris.

Ace didn't look at her, or acknowledge the city that had just gone dark, or the anger still radiating off her through the Force. He just kept staring ahead at the darkness.

A long, irritated sigh escaped him.

"So what?"

The answer came immediately, flat and blunt. He was completely unconcerned with how it sounded, or how it made him look. He didn't care anymore. If she wanted to think he threw it. Fine. If she knew he threw it. Also fine.

His eyes remained fixed ahead, expression unreadable, waiting to see whether Arris actually wanted an answer. Or if this was just another attempt to avoid talking about the mess that was today, the mess that was her life, the mess that was her.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

"So what?" She repeated, like pinning the words to the wall. "Ace, listen." The emphasis was sharp.

Arris placed one hand on her hip and turned, head only, to give him a look somewhere between skeptical and tired.

"I don't know what's driving you. But I do see the edges... You're chasing control; you want someone, or someones, to finally see the Acier Moonbound that can do it. To trust you. To let you get - whatever it is - done."

Then, she turned to face him fully, whether or not he'd meet her, though if he did, he'd see the fire had already drained from her eyes. "I sure as hell know it's not me you're trying to prove anything to, and as much as I think you're trying to tell yourself otherwise, it's not you, either." She said.

"So, if you're gonna stay committed to whatever the hell it is you're doing, then I need you to trust me fully. Cuz I think you're going to do something really stupid, and if I don't know why when that time comes, I will get in your way."

That was it. She waited for him. Maybe to critique or deflect. Maybe to answer. Maybe to change the subject or ignore, just like she does.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Corellia

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

For a long moment, Ace didn't answer. The city remained dark ahead of them. Thousands of windows extinguished beneath Arris's anger. Traffic continued flowing regardless.

Eventually he exhaled. "You think I'm chasing control." His eyes remained fixed forward. "Maybe. But not for the reason you think. I came here to stop you. All of you."

The admission came easily. Almost surprisingly so.

"That was the whole point. I saw the Covenant was dangerous. All the way back on Kattada. So I got close."

A humorless smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth before fading just as fast. For the first time, he glanced at her.

"Then I saw how effectively we got things done." His gaze drifted back toward the city. "When a threat shows up, we move. No committees. No debates. No waiting six months while somebody files paperwork and argues over jurisdiction."

His voice remained calm, measured and tired. All in one.

"I didn't come here because I cared about the Republic. I came here because people I cared about did. But I've watched too many people die, funny that we were the cause most of the time, while somebody else argued about procedure."

His arms folded across his chest.

"Mercy's effective." The admission sounded almost reluctant. "That's what makes her dangerous. 'Cause she's right about some things. Just not the things she thinks she's right about."

Ace stared into the darkness, and for several seconds he said nothing. Then:

"I'm not trying to prove anything, Arris. If this galaxy keeps going the way it's going, people I care about die. And I'm tired of pretending somebody else is gonna fix it."

The words were quiet and dangerously honest.

"Mercy's effective. She created something effective, but she needs to go. Maybe I'll get strong enough to kill her. Or not. But she isn't the best option available. She never was."

A long silence followed. Then Ace shrugged. She said she was going to get in his way. Way he saw it? She was going to get in his way whether he lied or told the truth. So why bother lying?

"You want the truth? I think the Republic's too weak. I think Mercy's too dangerous. And somebody eventually has to take the wheel."

The statement lingered between them, devoid of arrogance and triumph, he was just convicted.

He glanced her way, hand gripping on the hilt of his lightsaber. Ace remembered how Coruscant went, and he'd be ready this time.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

'To stop all of us?' Well, those were certainly strong words. Arris listened.

Usually, the mention of Kattada would leave Arris feeling hurt. That was when she betrayed Tilon Quill, who was her friend. But now? The name passed, and she didn't think much of it, other than the starting point of his timeline.

His talk of the Covenant's effectiveness was not surprising at all. They had that conversation together when they initially decided to steer the Covenant towards - what they believed, anyway - to be better methods with greater ends. For one, their plan to disrupt the Republic by pressuring its existing fractures, rather than murder and terror.

It wasn't until he mentioned Mercy that her understanding shifted. She turned her head a little more.

'That's what makes her dangerous?' Arris reflected on that, nearly missing what came right after. 'What do you mean by that, Ace?'

But she needs to go.

Those words struck.

When Ace implied that he himself might kill her, the cyborg was on the precipice of going soldier - that version of Arris that was all too quick to put a slug in your skull. He had just witnessed it moments ago, on the top floor of the tower behind them. But then he said something else.

"You want the truth? I think the Republic's too weak. I think Mercy's too dangerous. And somebody eventually has to take the wheel."

'I think the Republic's too weak.'

That took her a step back. She had to process that for a moment, even as Acier's hand went for his lightsaber, just in case. A weak smile curved at the corner of her mouth. The Republic is too weak. Mercy is too dangerous. And whether the Covenant was worthy depended on who had the reins. At least, that was how Arris interpreted that bit at the end.

It took him saying all that for Arris to realize something she hadn't really noticed until just then. Acier was a kid thrust into an impossible position, and because everyone else had failed him, or needed - as he believed - his protection, he just had to do this. How could he uproot himself from that when he had fought, killed, and paid for progress with pieces of his soul.

Windrun's hands went low, reaching around her gunbelt. It unclasped and fell to the duracrete with a heavy thud. She turned, walking towards him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was a soft touch, and she leaned in a little.

"Stop this," she uttered. "I can't change what happened to Rox. I can't change the fact that I ran away. But you say you're here for the people you care about? Well, they're not here. You are. And you can still turn around."

It was too late for her. But not him. Not Ace.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Corellia

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace watched the holster fall to the duracrete with a heavy thud, then he watched Arris approach. Instinct made him take a single step back. His eyes dropped briefly to the hand she placed on his shoulder before lifting back to her face. He listened quietly, and somewhere in the middle of her words, surprise slipped through the cracks.

He'd expected anger. A fight. Not this. Slowly, he rolled his shoulder and moved her hand away.

"I can't." His voice carried a quiet frustration and Ace turned his head aside.

"I've come too far to stop, Arris. Lost too much. I've murdered people. Ruined relationships. Ruined parts of myself just so I could keep going." A bitter breath escaped him. "I did it all for them... if I can't be with them, I can keep them protected. If I stop now..."

His hands clenched and his left arm snapped forward in a sharp cross. What followed was a violent telekinetic wave that ripped down the street. Windows shattered, duracrete cracked, and signs tore loose from buildings while parked speeders rocked violently on their suspensors. The shockwave surged half a block before dissipating into the night.

Silence followed and Ace lowered his arm.

"I can't let it be for nothing." His voice was harsher now.

Ace stepped past her. Several paces later he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.

"Mercy already knows. She's expecting me to challenge her one day." A faint scoff escaped him.

Mercy already knew, or expected, everyone in the Covenant to vie for the Throne. But between Mercy and himself? It felt different. Ever since Throneworld, there'd been an unspoken understanding between them. That someday he'd come for her.

Arris Windrun​